


Patches

by drD



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 13:51:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16476767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drD/pseuds/drD
Summary: Hermione is still recovering from the war, even a decade later. Still, it is nice to get out, and there's something awfully magical about the pumpkin patch. Even if horrors lurk within it.





	Patches

It’s incredible, Harry’s ability to be sincerely sociable. He glows, vibrantly, with a sort of practiced and well-earned charisma. It’s just the sort of thing, his playful look and easy smile, to give him a sense of humility. That shy tilt of head, the almost awkward but genuine laughter. He has little to hide, now that there is little to hide from. So,  it’s easier then, to forget about his scars--each one a symbol of his courageous capacity--or the flicker of his gaze--left, to right, then back again. For all intents and purposes, he looks at ease, at the center of company. A testament to adaptability and forward progress in the face of adversity.

She wondered how he could stand to be in open spaces.

How he could surround himself with smiling faces and return sly looks or coy words with curious innocence. She is incapable of it. Her smile is  _ off _ , her too laughter low--cruel, Lavender had told her, once--and her mind distracted. Hermione can’t help but wonder what it’s like to live with such clarity. To move through each day without the hounds of their past baying wildly and nipping along the heels of their sanity. Perhaps, for him and those others who found it so simple to titter in carefree joviality, time had dulled trauma and horror. What need was there to worry when they’d all fallen into their proper place? When peace kept them swaddled and warm and the world just kept turning, concealing individual struggle into private moments behind locked doors.

Unspoken and silent.

But dulled trauma and pragmatism had only transformed into something else; need and a sense of lacking. Filling that void within her being with work and aspirations had done little to ease the ache of it. Yes, she was Minister, and certainly that was  _ something _ , Muggleborn that she was. But not enough.

Never enough.

But it wasn’t proper, least not anymore, to speak of hunger and issue before polite company and it felt easier to feel… disdain toward her company--swallowed so it could churn in the pit of her belly, instead of in the depths of her gaze--for their careless nature than face the  _ itch _ beneath her skin. Moreover, who was she to judge another for their behavior so many years after the war? Let them laugh, and screech, and smile. It was better that way.

Silence, their noise allowed for her own private silence.

“‘Moine?” Ron approached her, cheeks rosy from spiked cider and the chill of the biting fall. 

She didn’t bother looking up or ceasing her action, “Ronald.”

He’d aged well, into a respectable man in a respectable career with his new respectable wife. Someone who didn’t twitch and jerk in the bed or mutter at walls, she supposed. Someone who had less issues with noise and felt better among the quiet. Their departure from one another hadn’t been that bad, though the initial split had been… difficult. They had a shared responsibility, after all.

One who glanced up between her hands and kicked her feet slightly as Hermione allowed her to use her arm as a swing. All the better to girl some excitement among the mundancy of visiting a pumpkin patch. 

Ron crouched down, expression a bit pinched but otherwise steady. “Rose.”

The child tilted her head, large brown eyes at home on a cherub face. She didn’t cease her motions, not entirely, but she did pause for a moment to blow a tangled lock of black hair from her face, “Papa.”

Hermione had expected her to look more like Ronald. To have his vibrant red hair or a freckled face. But she looked very much like herself, give or take some curls. Still, perhaps Rose had acquired her cheekbones from him, and the intensity of her stare…

“Are you having fun in the Muggle plumpkin patch?”

Rose tilted her head back and Hermione made a soft sound of correction, “Pumpkin patch.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck.  “Are you, erm, having fun?”

Rose gave a slight nod, but seemed distracted, not that she was a talkative child. She’d never been very chatty. Maybe that was more of her.

It was only when Ron cleared his throat awkwardly that Hermione glanced up, away from the wild mop of hair on their child. Ron watched her, he often did, as she stood a bit straighter, allowing Rose to place her feet firmly on the ground before she stepped to the side to inspect a nearby pumpkin.

For a moment, there was silence, pregnant with all the words neither of them could or wanted to say. Ron was the first to break her gaze.

So she spoke, “Do you feel that?”

His initial response of a blink before he’s back to looking at her and not at the group of their friends down the hill. “Feel that? Feel what?”

Magic, raw and  _ dark _ , lingering like ink on stained fingertips. And, she  _ was  _ stained by it, by the taste of it, by the bone deep pulse that had swept through her belly as soon as she’d entered the ‘Muggle-only’ space. Whatever had happened here seemed incredibly vibrant to her, rubbing and urging, leaving her flesh prickled and hot.

How could Ron not feel it? Not  _ taste _ it? Not crave it?

Then again, it hadn’t been Ron who’d been struck by a curse so vile that even cast wordlessly it had nearly ended her. The scarring across her chest and belly was enough to prove that and maybe… maybe a bit of that spell had remained within her, festering, flexing along her blood until it had been brought to life by a near endless crucio under a hooked wand and knife.

She took a deep breath and peered at Ron from behind lowered eyelashes. “I see.”

“See what?” A sliver of irritation slipped into his tone. Just enough for her to notice, but she’d been aware of his moods for longer than most. “I don’t  _ feel _ anything here.”

Did he  _ feel _ anything, anywhere? That was what their problem had been, hadn’t it? That she felt too much--trapped, contained, writhing within her skin, reaching for something that wasn’t grey--and that he hadn’t felt enough? Hadn’t noticed her unspoken pains? Hadn’t addressed her dottiness or confusion?

No, that wasn’t fair to him. To any of them. He couldn’t read the broken pieces of her mind no more than she could read his. 

“Sorry, I thought…” Hermione paused, heard Rose make a curious sound nearby. “No, I’m just a bit tired is all.”

Ron gave a slow nod, unwilling to pry though she doubted he believed her. “Being Minister can be tiring, I bet.” But he didn’t push further. Didn’t ask why. He was probably all out of questions. “Look, we’re going to head out. Do you want to stop by? You and Rose could sit with me and--”

“No thank you.” Hermione said, though quickly added. “Rose hasn’t picked her pumpkin.”

And because, for the first time in… some time, she  _ wanted _ . It was something she couldn’t name, but it was there, coiled just beneath her skin, connected to the ebb and flow of earth beneath her feet and the idle pulse of magic she could taste. Familiar, and heady, and  _ filling _ . Maybe this was what she needed, a quiet walk through a dark-washed pumpkin patch, so that the wriggling thing in her body could be soothed and sleepy. 

She smiled, yes. That’s… that would be nice. “But this weekend…”

Ron cleared his throat. “Yes, this weekend. The park?”

Hermione nodded. Rose would like that. Some aimless wandering through a neighborhood in a little princess costume--or something, anything really--and a bucket full of candy. Halloween would be fun for her, even if she was an… odd child. 

“The park.”

Ron gave another nod and went to bid Rose goodbye. His kiss upon her forehead was accepted with only a curious tilt of it, but she still gave him a small wave as he wandered off. Back up the hill. Back to their gaggle of giggling friends, who all waved goodbye to her in turns. 

Soon they were alone, her and her introspective daughter, who only sniffed slightly as if she’d noticed something no one else had bothered to see. Then, she was back to her idle exploration, Hermione behind her, with one hand up and fingertips shifting through shadows she couldn’t see but could feel…

“How lonely, it must be, upon your gracious throne, where no mere mortal could reach you.”

Heat lit up her skin, a deep peculiar burn that started upon her marked and scarred forearm. This was not the first time her scar had beat at her in such a way, but the idle ache and soreness that often faded to a dull tingle was not present. Instead her flesh sung, inflamed with a foreign agony that felt horrid and  _ sweet _ all at the same time. When she crouched over, breath trapped in her throat, chest hammering, she’d nearly forgotten that a voice had called out to her, and that… that  _ voice  _ had awakened the dormant scar--often asleep but always raised, always angry.

Rose was quick, concern on her features, but no fear in her gaze. She’d never been the sort to easily frighten, and maybe she was aware of more than she should have been. Hermione would… need to do something about that. What sort of mother allowed their child to witness their inner horrors?

“Mama?” Rose mumbled, tiny hands within the depths of her coat, gripping, trying to coax her to stand.

And she did, with trembling knees as the initial burst of… sensation--she was hesitant to call it pain and she  _ refused _ to acknowledge it as anything else--faded into the usual tingling ache, a heady pulsing reminder of its existence. 

And the owner that crafted it.

And while Hermione held no fear, just a healthy dose of caution, that did not mean she was willing and eager to twist about and face the creature at her back. Not with her child--and were Rose not there, would she have turned either way?--exposed and vulnerable. Yet precaution was something she’d always taught, and habits were difficult to break when one had crawled on hands and knees past the muck and the destitute during the height of savage war. 

So she did turn, carefully pressing Rose to her thigh and slightly behind her, with silent order for her to not let go, not unless she absolutely had to. Rose remained attentive, obedient, and eerily quiet. It was enough for Hermione to mourn the silent loss of her innocence, for what child instinctively knew that the world was dangerous and callous? That safety wasn’t promised? Not after the war, so long ago, and not here.

Her child was far too observant and that was worrisome.

“Cute,” the voice was a rolling curl, gravel underfoot that rasped in a manner too knowing. She’d heard that voice before. In her dreams, in her visions, and though it was often screeching she’d imagined what it must have been at rest. The difference was… negatible. Whether she was wild and wicked or intensely composed Hermione’s reaction was the same. Her skin crawled, her muscles twitched, and despite the casual motion of her hand she held tight to the wand against one hip and the child pressed to the other. 

“Alive, are you?” Hermione croaked, waiting for the sting of anxiety and a healthy dose of fear to join the shifting displeasure in her guts. Yet, it seemed far, disconnected, buried beneath the thick sense of magic that prevailed in the space.

“I am,” lips pulled back to reveal saliva slick teeth, their points impossibly sharp, as if this ghost were more beast than woman--and, in a way, wasn’t that true?

Thereafter swelled a sickening silence. Hermione, with knuckle-white grip upon her wand and…  _ her _ , settled across the way, with the crisp breeze in her hair and the perverse sharpness of madness striking deeper shadows across shades of dilated black. And it was comfortable, heinously, to simply remain. To bask in the prickling heat of the magic she’d shamelessly enjoyed and watching the stare of her company twist over her form before…

“You’ve a child.” It’s just a statement, but tension settles coiled and tight along Hermione’s spine. She doesn’t respond, there is nothing to say, so  _ she  _ speaks again, cracking the silence before it has time to settle. “It looks nothing like him, your blood-traitor.”

There are many words on the tip of Hermione’s tongue, all of them vile, but what-- “He is not mine.”

She says nothing to that while her eyes continued to roam, first over Rose unnaturally calm features, then through the black of her wild hair--

Hermione speaks again, “Why are you alive, Lestrange?”

Because it’s a bloody good question.

Now her attention is directed. It’s back on Hermione, to whom she gifts with a smile that is three-parts cruel and two-parts contemplative. “Talkative? You’ve time for a conversation? With the likes of me, is it?”

Her hesitance to gloat or expose the level of brilliance this must have taken to pull off is... is unusual, but maybe death has brought Bellatrix some sort of introspection. Or has mellowed her. Or any other number of things. Hermione can’t be certain, she has never been dead, not in the sense where she’d lack breath.

“I’d prefer to leave.” And left unsaid was ‘or do you harm, great and unmanageable’ but she’s not so foolish to express it. “But I won’t deny that I’m not curious.”

Bellatrix is statuesque and had she not spoken Hermione would have thought her little more than a fixture in the patch, meant to scare witches and muggles alike. “Of course you are, for what else is left in this oh so glorious life that you’ve built?”

It’s an odd statement, one Hermione has to ponder on. “You’ve been dead for sometime, so you wouldn’t know--”

“That you are Minister? The mudstruck hero now ruler of the realm? Trash and filth, the lot of them. All smiles in your quant kingdom of lies.”

Her mouth opened, closed, and the hand she held upon Rose trembled. Hermione didn’t fashion herself the best conversationalist, especially not with the likes of Bellatrix Lestrange. She was a politician now, worn-weary through debate. Thought and action, plans, schemes of a near Slytherin variety she could mostly handle. But reading between the lines, trying to understand why Bellatrix seemed content to chat verse trying to take all that she had… that wasn’t anything she wanted to ponder.

“How… long have you been alive?” Hermione asked then, bypassing her talk of trash and kingdoms.

“Long enough to know why you stayed.”

It wasn’t an answer, not a real one. All it told her for certain was that Bellatrix had seen her awkward  uncomfortable conversation with Ron. And that, maybe she too… felt the magic on the air. That perhaps, she’d been the cause of it. The idea should have filled her with rage, or disgust, or any sort of negativity, but she felt so…  _ good _ , in the patch that little else mattered as to why. The constant dull of normality, the trained and excess energy that had been drilled into her during the war, felt soothed. For once there were  _ colors  _ among the grey of reality. 

Oh, this was going to become a problem. 

“I’ll assume it’s been some time then, since you’ve… recovered.” From being killed. “Enough time for you to know that I’ve the power and the will to destroy you again.”

Bellatrix made a sound of patronizing amusement, her cackle high-pitched and wheezing, omnious with all that it left unsaid between them. 

But Hermione continued on, “And so, I ask again  _ how _ and furthermore, why you’d reveal yourself.” Least of all to her. 

Her laughter, highly inappropriate and somewhat grating, dies on the wind, an echo that stirs memories Hermione cannot indulge. Rose presses closer to her, but does not tremble with the fright Hermione expected. Either Rose is a Gryffindor--which comes with it’s own issues around untempered bravery--or something else is at work behind her curious eyes.

“I wanted to see it.” Bellatrix croaked, her gaze upon Hermione’s jacket covered arm. It’s enough to make the flesh hidden there warm and Hermione represses the urge to turn to it herself. Something moves beneath the skin and her sharp inhale is audible, but she’ll give it no attention. She couldn’t afford to. One blink and Bellatrix might be upon her, and she’s already inside of her, a constant presence hovering at the back of her mind.

Bellatrix isn’t done speaking, and though her gaze drifts from her arm Hermione can’t help but grow tense when it lands upon Rose. “And her.”

Instinctively Hermione tightens her grip on her wand. “You will not hurt her, you will not come near us--”   


“You think I would hurt her?” Bellatrix smile is far too wide and eager, edged with restless mania. 

Hermione isn’t sure how much longer she can remain on alert nor why she isn’t doing something, attacking, calling for Harry, for Ron-- “Do you expect me to believe you wouldn’t? That, in your death, you’ve changed?”

“I have,” Bellatrix huffed, nostrils flared. “Death is endless, when you’re drowning in it. Plenty of time for thoughts, for ideals to twist and motives to change.”

Finally, Bellatrix took a step forward. Then another, and Hermione felt rooted in place, heart thudding heavily against her chest. 

“But don’t misunderstand.” She snapped her teeth in a manner more playful than threatening. “I am still, unashamedly  _ me _ . Just a  _ me _ with plans.”

Finally, as Bellatrix stepped before her, Hermione whipped up her wand. It held steady, the tip against her chest as power hummed between them. Different. Similar. She could  _ taste  _ it,  _ feel it _ , against her skin and something in her  _ sung _ .

Oh.

_ Oh. _

“It was me.” Hermione whispered, but her aim did not shift. “I tethered you here. The scar… we’re bound--”

Now Bellatrix laughed again, loud and uproarious, as Hermione’s grip slackened and her breathing grew faint. Those glorious colors twisted around the edge of her vision, clawing at her consciousness with various signs of abnormality that she had ignored throughout the recent decade. The time she’d laughed at a joke Ron had said, and he’d paled rapidly. The way she often manically tapped her wand against her thigh. The twisting  _ thing _ in her chest that had craved more than simplicity--more power, more authority, more control… and Ron’s goodbye, as he stared at their child, with a strange sort of anguish in his eyes that whispered  _ I don’t know if you are mine _ \--

Now Bellatrix stepped forward, perhaps driven by the understanding that blossomed in her gaze or sensing the weakness in her limbs. She pressed so close to her that they were chest to chest, face to face, with only Rose between them. Rose, who held sharp cheekbones under her bronze skin, and eyes as dark as the voids that stared into her own. Rose who didn’t even twitch when Bellatrix invaded their space, who seemed more relaxed than she had in the six years she’d been living.

Hermione expected anguish to tear through her form, to bow from the weight of the  _ truth _ that knocked at her skull. But the most she could do was stare, mind utterly quiet as Bellatrix leaned forward, breath against her cheek.

“I wanted to taste your defeat. To hear your pretty little cries when you realized it, and I  _ know _ you’ve realized it… the truth. But, what I find more delectable is the calm in your gaze, as everything snaps neatly into place.” There was a pause then, the sound of Hermione’s heavy breathing, before Bellatrix continued. “I  _ ruined _ you, back on that floor, back in that manor. I had every intention to do so, and you’ve hurriedly snapped all those little broken pieces back into place  _ incorrectly. _ ”

Hermione opened her mouth but Bellatrix had lifted her hand. Now fingers, light and warm and  _ alive _ were set to trace across her lips, and that was more than enough to silence her.

“And, I think you knew that and didn’t care, Madam Minister.”

Now that hand, the one that had traced her lips, moved to the top of Rose head. To pat and stroke through curls that bounced so similarly to her own. “Magic is… mysterious, and awful, and  _ addictive _ and it does whatever it wants to whomever it pleases. Wizards are cocky, they think they know, they think they understand, but our control is fickle and we’ll always bow before the majesty of it. We own a piece of it, deep within us, and often those around us can leave a piece of themselves in us and it forms… shapes, the things we  _ create _ .”

Here Hermione drew in a deep breath as something blossomed between her eyes. The undoubtable validity of Bellatrix phrase and the horrible  _ understanding _ of what she hinted.

“And  _ powerful  _ magic can overwhelm weaker irrelevance, influencing every aspect, every outcome. Every. Last. Thing. You’ve ever made.”

Her heart was a rocket in her chest and she wondered, what with Bellatrix closeness, whether or not the other woman could hear it’s punishing beat. “You wish to haunt me.”

“I wish to  _ consume _ you. But I’ll do the haunting for a time, after all you have things that belong to me. Things I don’t intend to part with.”

The tether.

Herself.

And… and…

Bellatrix drew a hand gently through Rose hair, before she slowly crouched downward to stare at the child. She smiled somewhat  _ off _ and so  _ sincere _ that it was horrid in it’s own way.

It was made worse when Rose returned the same look.

“Did you pick a filthy little pumpkin, dear?” 

Rose bobbed her head then, before she pointed to a nearby pumpkin.

“Go get it and when you return we’ll pick you up a  _ friend _ .”

Slowly, as if reluctant to leave Hermione alone--with her thoughts and her confusion and… and so so much more--she left them, to wander nearby and grasp what they’d come for.

“You hold Great Britain in your hand.” Bellatrix said, though her gaze remained on the child. “ _ I _ should hold it in my hand. To burn and crush or whatever else I wish to do with it. Perhaps, I will do so through you.”

“I will not...you will not--”

Bellatrix snorted, “Something else to talk about, I suppose.”

Hermione was overwhelmed, “You… you are not… you will not remain free. I cannot allow this.”

Then she cursed softly, she wouldn’t allow it. Absolutely  _ mustn't _ allow it. 

But Bellatrix only smiled that odd off smile in response, more interested in watching Rose hobble over as she cooed, “Oh a good one…”

And it was a good pumpkin but--wait, now was not the time to indulge in this bizarre scenario. Her wand hand twitched, but no spell came to mind. What could she do? What did she  _ want  _ to do? 

“I do not regret,” Bellatrix suddenly said, but there was something terribly human in her softened gaze and her uttered words. “I am incapable.”

Hermione sneered then, opened her mouth--

“But…” Bellatrix whispered, almost so low Hermione nearly missed it, “there are things I’ve done that cannot be left unresolved. Not to you, of course. No. I greatly enjoy it, the thought of your  _ possession _ . But to another. I could not remain in that darkness while she suffered for my… lack of understanding.”

Slowly Hermione extended her hand, placed it upon Rose head as Bellatrix did the same. Rose held onto her pumpkin, smiling, and yet Hermione knew she wasn’t oblivious, not as she should have been. 

She’d have to deal with that a lot sooner than later.

“There’s another…” Bellatrix started, but her voice trailed off, her gaze somewhat distant, before she blinked. “Rose is the only one?”

Hermione nodded, disturbed by the subject change mid-sentence. 

“No other Weasel brats?”

Hermione frowned then and sneered, “Watch it.”

Rose only hummed a bit mindlessly.

“Good then.” Bellatrix huffed, before she gripped her rather hard, clawed fingers clutching her shoulder. “Two children for a Ministry House is enough.”

“T-two children?” Hermione sputtered, “What? Who?”

“Let’s go, no time to dally, I’m sure they still have her--”

“--What? I’m not going  _ anywhere _ with the likes of you!”

“Rose? Are you ready? Hold on tightly now, we’re going to get you a sister!”

Hermione suddenly wanted to scream. She had  _ no _ interest in being pulled along for this ride, and certainly not her Rose--

“Who is it?” Rose asked then, her first full sentence of the night, all barely contained excitement.

“Why, it’s your big sister--What is it, Madam Minister, you look a little green? Every child needs an older sister. It’s  _ tradition _ \--Delphini.”

And then, the three of them were gone.

 


End file.
